1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a container for use in preserving food or the like and to an information provision system that transmits information on the amount or presence of beverage or food.
2. Description of the Related Art
A radio frequency identification (RFID) tag has received attention to manage food or the like. Specifically speaking, different RFID tags in which the kind of food and so on are recorded are attached to individual foods, so that the information recorded in the RFID tags is read and used to manage the number or kind of foods in a storage such as a refrigerator.
For example, an egg-information management system for managing information specific to eggs in packages is disclosed in JP-A-2003-325074. The IC tags of the system have information on the expiration date etc. of eggs, which can be used at home or the like.
Another technique of inventory control for food whose storage space is fixed is disclosed in JP-A-2001-317856, which proposes a refrigerator in which food information such as the name and the threshold of remaining amount of food is input only once before the start of inventory control, from which the remaining amount can be determined.
However, ordinary home consumers buy meat etc. in a mass, and take out part of them every cooking, or store it after precooking and take out a necessary amount for cooking. For this purpose, Tapperware™ or the like is used.
When food is transferred from a package at the time of purchase to Tapperware™ or the like, the information in the RFID tag attached to the package at the time of purchase cannot be used. Accordingly, containers for transfer may incorporate a device for storing and displaying information, to which information is entered from a keyboard or the like. However, it takes much time and labor to input the information on large amount of food, so that it is inconvenient.
For food that is taken out by a necessary amount to cook, the food in the transfer container can be managed only by appearance or the like. This may not provide sufficient information control in the future of advanced computerization of home appliance, so that it is inconvenient.
For the related-art refrigerator, the inventory control is allowed only for solid food, such as eggs, whose position is fixed. However, the remaining amount of beverage cannot be managed. Also, this is not adaptable to actual food storage, such as when sealed bottles are laid on their sides for food other than eggs (e.g., tube wasabi) is placed in the space for eggs, the remaining amount cannot be determined accurately, resulting in limited availability.